Couples who drink together, stick together

If you thought bars and pubs are the worst grounds to find a romantic partner, think again. Couples who are in sync with their taste for alcohol have better odds of sticking together over time, a new study finds. In a study of 634 couples, heavy drinkers as well as those who drank little, had much lower rates of divorce than couples in which one partner was a heavier drinker.

Researchers from the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions, in the US, tracked couples from the time of their weddings through the first nine years of marriage. Findings showed that 50% of couples in which one partner drank more heavily ended up divorcing, while the divorce rates for other couples was only 30%.

“This research provides solid evidence to bolster the commonplace notion that heavy drinking by one partner can lead to divorce,” said lead researcher Kenneth Leonard. “Although some people might think that’s a likely outcome, there was surprisingly little data to back up that claim until now.”

The findings are to be published in the December issue of Psychology of Addictive Behaviours.